DJA

So... I'm in the process of putting some 1st gen outback struts and wheels/ tires (probably stock 205/70r/15) on my car to gain a little more clearance. I was going to wait until spring time next year, but the current struts are beyond blown out and I'm scratching the bejesus out of everything after less than about half a foot of hardened snowfall here in Oregon. From searching on forums, I found that the springs in my 95 should be the same size as the springs in a first gen outback (?). Will there be a huge difference in ride quality over my older springs and either newer used outback springs (still first gen) or brand new ones? Or does the height and ride quality really depend on the strut more than the spring? The reason I ask is that I haven't been able to track down outback springs for purchase by themselves anywhere, unless I bought a used pair. So far, my options appear to be: 1. Buy 4 KYB's for a 1st gen outback and use my 95's springs. 2. Buy the whole strut assembly from a pick in pull or wrecking yard from a 1st gen outback and run the risk of buying worn out struts. 3. Buy 4 KYB's for a 1st gen outback and 4 new springs (from?). 4. Buy the whole strut assembly from a 2nd gen Forester (though there seems to be mixed opinions on whether this is a purely bolt on mod or not). Any recommendations?

So far everything is good. I did notice that the endlinks on the front come in at a sharper angle after the swap, but haven't noticed any damage yet. I should also note that I swapped the endlinks for both the front and rear bars since mine were pretty shot and i'm sure the originals would have blown anyways with or without the upgrade.

Just installed the front and rear bars off a 98 outback. Mounted up without a hitch. Turning feels much tighter than the stock 95 bars. Thanks again Su bah roo'n for the info!

Gotcha. Maybe the geometry will be different when the car is lowered back to the ground, but when I put the bar from the 98 OB on the 96 legacy at the pick n pull, the bolt holes on the ends looked like they curled out in a totally different direction. I also layers the bars down side by side and they were definitely shaped differently. But if you've put both front and rear from an OB on your 95 legacy than I guess I'll give it a shot. It would be nice to tighten up the steering a bit more than how it was with the stock bars.

Apologies if there is already info about this somewhere on the site. I've been hunting around for a while and haven't found the exact info I am looking for. Basically I need to know which front sway bars will work on my 95 legacy L. I was at the pick n pull to get a sway bar (read that 90-04 non turbo and non GT legacy front bars should be interchangeable), but the sway bars I found (98 outback, 96 Lego, and 93 lego) all looked different. The length was the same and the width just barely different between the outback and legos, but the main difference was the curl of the bar. They all curled in different directions, the biggest difference being the bar from the outback. I would have taken the sway bar from the 96 home, but it was in pretty bad shape. Next time I'm just going to bring the bar off of my 95 for comparison (which I should've done in the first place), but I figured I would ask in the meantime if anyone knows the exact compatibility between front sway bars and models. I was mainly just going off of this: http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/official-suspension-faq-swaybars-struts-springs-coilovers-alignment-171914.html Thanks for the help!

Thanks for the responses. I haven't noticed any more oil spots under the car the last few days and luckily there was no oil loss on my trip this last weekend. I'm just going to leave it alone until I have the time in the future to pull the motor and go over everything.

The RMS came from the subaru dealer. I didn't replace the o-ring behind the wrist pin plate. I tried to loosen the screws with a handheld phillips and an electric hand drill with a philips bit in it, but they wouldn't budge at all and I was worried about stripping the heads. There appeared to be a little bit of oil around the plate, but it didn't seem super bad. Heartless: I'll definitely keep a close eye on it. Luckily though, I haven't had add any oil after about a 100 miles of stop and go this last week. I'll be taking it on a 3hr drive this weekend though, so we'll see how it does. Here's a picture (albeit a poor one) of everything before I cleaned it... There was also some notable seepage between the plastic drip plate at the bottom of the pic below and the oil pan.

Update. Everything went fairly smooth and the new clutch and tranny are working great. However, I looked under the car yesterday and noticed that the baffle plate and/or rear main seal still appear to be leaking. I replaced both and am now worried that something went wrong during replacement. The rear main seal that was already there looked pretty bad and was super brittle when I removed it. The plate was the original plastic plate and definitely needed replacing. I purchased a new metal plate (with allen screws) from the dealership and used black rtv for the gasket. The rear main seemed to go in perfectly fine by using a very light amount of grease to get it to seat evenly and a wood block easily pushed it in. I allowed the rtv on the baffle plate to sit for about 30 seconds with the allen screws in "finger tight" and then torqued them down as good as I could with a wrench. Bead thickness was about a 16th of an inch and I also put some around the screw holes as was recommended on the sealant tube. I'm not sure how much pressure was applied when I torqued the allen screws down, but It seemed perfectly adequate. I know that a lot of people on this site say not to mess with the rear main seal, but it seemed fairly easy to replace and I can't imagine it leaking that bad even if I didn't add some extra sealant to it as some suggest. I'll be taking the car on a 3 month road trip in just about 2 weeks and don't have the time to take everything out again to check it. There isn't a huge puddle of oil under the car but it's definitely leaving a small spot and dripping slowly onto the exhaust. Should I just drive it, keep an eye on the oil, and worry about it later? I'm certainly not paying a mechanic the labor required to fix something as cheap as the baffle plate and rear seal...

Huh, maybe it's just a precautionary measure in the rare case of electrical surge. I'll put a new eyelet on it anyways and rebolt it to the trans. Thanks again for the advice!

Thanks for the advice. Spent the last few days taking everything apart and swapping in a different tranny. I ended up skipping the access plate since the amount of oil loss didn't look too bad from there and no matter how hard I leaned into it, I couldn't get good enough purchase on the screw heads and I didn't want to strip them. The rear main seal and separator plate however looked terrible so I replaced both of those. Only issue was that I forgot to take of the little steering linkage bracket that bolts onto the back of the transmission and the dealer does not have them in stock, so I may just try and find one at the pick and pull on Monday. One more question though... In the beginning when I was taking everything off, I went to remove the transmission ground wire and it wasn't even connected to the transmission and you can see where the metal attachment point busted off. I'm guessing I could just get another metal connector piece to fix the broken end, but am unsure about where it connects to the transmission. Could I just put it on anywhere as long as it's secured (by bolt) to the transmission?

awesome, thanks! ordered an exedy clutch kit today and have a list of a few other things to pick up as well (rear main seal, manifold gaskets, oil separator plate, 3/16 punch, engine degreaser, trans oil, etc..). Any other small things that I should have in advance?

I'm going to pull the transmission and have a shop look at it. I'll most likely just replace the clutch while I'm at it. I found a great walkthrough here http://www.rs25.com/forums/f105/t128163-diy-clutch-replacement-pictorial.html which is for a 99 2.5l impreza, but I couldn't find a comprehensive DIY for the 2.2l motor. Will it be more or less the same steps with the ej22?

Pretty sure the car needs a new transmission. Tried to change the oil today to see if the whine went away, but it's still there. I'm also pretty sure that the throw out bearing is toast. Honestly, it looked like the tranny oil hadn't been changed in years.. The plug had an insane amount of ripped up metal on it. Not good...

Just went and started the car. whirring noise with the clutch out, goes away when it's engaged. Oil appears to be dirty. I unfortunately do not have a press. I'll check later, but the whirring noise appears to be present no matter which gear i'm in.

(Revised the original post) here's the rundown... I recently bought a 1995 Legacy with the ej22 and 127k on it and found out that it needs some transmission work (has a whirring noise on acceleration and during idling, but it goes away when the clutch pedal is pushed in). I'm considering just fixing it myself and was wondering if there are any good walkthroughs on the ej22 motor for clutch replacement and/or transmission removal.